Re: PAC: MT 10 (voting by mail)

[Jon Bosak <bosak@boethius.eng.sun.com>]

(I believe that Terry is already out of email range for a while,
but I didn't want to lose this point.)

[tallen@sonic.net:]

| | There is a reason that we have the concept of "business day" in
| | English, and so far nothing beyond the three alternatives I've
| | already suggested captures that.  
| 
| What do you see as the general problem?

I run into this question of how to define a business day (or more
to the point, a non-business day) in every standards process I
participate in.  Unless you're going to completely ignore the idea
that some days don't count (which immediately leads you into
insanities like allowing important deadlines to fall on Christmas
day), you have to set up a policy for how to agree within the
smaller or larger scope of any particular activity on what
constitutes a holiday.

I am totally convinced that this issue will have to be dealt with
by the board; the question is whether it has to be solved as part
of the present effort to set up a long-term TC structure.

On reading through the draft bylaw language I sent out Monday, I
can see why Terry thinks that we could just avoid this topic
entirely.  The only place I currently use "business day" in that
draft is in pointing out that a meeting "may extend over several
consecutive business days."  If we get straight about what
constitutes a meeting, we might be able to step around this mess
for the moment *if* it doesn't become a necessary to the
definition of a minimum period for voting.  So if we accept
Terry's insistence that the minimum voting period cannot be less
than five to seven days, then maybe we don't need the concept of
business days.  But if we allow groups to operate on a zippier
schedule that might have voting periods as short as two or three
days, then it seems to me that the concept of "business day" is
unavoidable.

So that's where we are with this going into our meetings in Paris.

Jon